“All of you are shepherds and each of you are responsible for your flock…” – Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him)

In the midst of the global pandemic my wife and I managed to get married and help bring our daughter into this world with the guidance of what I believe is the omnipotent creator, the unbelievable grace of God.

In a very short timescale our daughter was requesting her needs clearly. A new born baby is like a Product Owner (hereafter, PO). The PO shares communications with their Scrum teams to express product backlog items, and at times co-creates stories together. In our context, these signals are largely experienced through hearing her beautiful cries and snuffle sounds to indicate her uneasiness. This immediately creates an urgency for a feed and occasionally a nappy change too: two types of product backlog items which make up a large bulk of new parents’ sprint backlog for now. I was chuffed that I managed to reasonably take care of the first nappy, thanks to the midwife pairing with me, although my wife did mention some defects in my approach, items to improve in the next sprint for now.

I felt my role as the Scrum master and at times a member of the Scrum team doing some of the co-creation of a product increment. My time was largely split caring, supporting, loving, feeding, and attempting to make life easy for my wife and releasing some of that burden to enable my daughter to get what she needed, undivided attention, focus, and value delivered in the form of love, hugs, feed, warmth, nappy change, and a clean and friendly environment to help her concentrate on her personal growth.

A huge thanks to East Surrey Hospital staff, especially the Midwives, Nurses, Doctors, Cleaners, Security and canteen staff, and anyone else that was responsible for co-creating an awesome environment for us to be blessed. In our case our daughter was like a Product Increment at some levels, I know what you’re thinking, ‘How absurd?’, work with me on this metaphor: she is continuously developing and growing her own strength to launch into the world outside of the hospital.

Every day is like a sprint, for each long day ahead we have a brief consultation and planning exercise, which involved all members of the Scrum team, I count the Midwives and Nurses too as part of our team. They are involved in the planning and execution elements and we seek their support on what the day looks like ahead, and if there were impediments and blockers we need to be mindful of (risks and issues). Thereafter, we make small adjustments to meet the goal of keeping our daughter fed, clean, safe, and warm, with ample amount of cuddles, change of nappy time, and change of clothing to enable her to grow and develop safely.

By the end of the day, it’s time for us to come together, reflect, love, and briefly mention the key events for the next day, one could easily see this as a Sprint Review, sharing what the future may look like given the knowledge we gained through the sprint complete, in our world releasing baby from the hospital. My wife and I would then have a moment to review our approach and consider ways of responding to our daughter and focus on what we can improve as a team to deliver continued value, at times involving our midwives and the Doctors, who were phenomenal and caring.

The Product Owner, silent yet focused, signals her comfort and continued feedback and shares her valuable growth each day, providing solace and a sense of achievement for the team. Our first few retrospectives complete and we unearthed new learnings to take into the next sprint, and make relevant adjustments going forward, most in real-time as our newly emergent PO is being agile, sharing things in real-time and making us pivot and respond to their needs.

The sprints go on and I look forward to seeing what may unearth over the coming weeks, months, and years.

‘Your wealth and your children are only a trial, whereas God, with Him is a great reward (Paradise).’ – The Quran

References

• My Wife
• My Daughter
• Sahih Bukhari
• The Quran, 64:15, Surah-At-Taghabun
• Scrum Guide (2020)
• East Surrey Hospital Staff